Most common types of fraud in the world

Courier scams

The courier scam is a technique when fraudsters are arranging for a courier to pick up your card to destroy it. They will also ask you to write down your PIN. To add credibility the fraudster may even advise you to cut the card before handing it over to the courier.

Please note that:

We will NEVER ask for your card and PIN to be returned via courier.
You should NEVER tell your PIN to anyone, even someone claiming to work for the bank.
Our employees will only ask for partial information, but never for full address or full date of birth.

To make sure that we can promptly contact you should anything look unusual on your account, please provide Ameriabank with up-to-date contact details, including a mobile telephone number.

Spoofing

Call spoofing is a technique where the fraudster fakes the phone number on caller ID to make you believe that you are being contacted by a genuine Ameriabank number. The phone number showing on your mobile/call ID screen will look very similar to a bank phone number but may have extra zeros at the front, e.g. 00845 70 70 70 rather than 0845 70 70 70.

The fraudster may give you false information that your account has been compromised, often claiming that payments have already been debited or that funds are at risk. The fraudster then instructs you to transfer money into a “safe” account to protect your funds from further attack. The fraudster may allege bank staff are involved or that you will lose their money if you do not act exactly as instructed.

As with all unsolicited phone calls we recommend you to terminate the call and contact the bank either on a different phone line or after waiting 10 minutes to make sure the line is properly disconnected. Alternatively visit a branch to report your concerns and confirm if the call was genuine.

Vishing

This involves a fraudster making phone calls to a victim, posing as bank staff, the fraud investigation team, police etc. The call is made to obtain the victim’s personal financial information, which often includes credit/debit card details (including PIN), bank account details and personal information such as full name, date of birth and/or address. This information is then used to gain access to their victim’s finances.

Advance fee or ‘419 fraud’

This involves unsolicited letters and e-mail messages offering the recipient a lucrative reward for helping to move large sums of money, usually in US dollars. These funds are said to be anything from corporate profits or unspent government funds to unclaimed money belonging to a deceased person. The fraudsters are trying to obtain your banking details. The transactions typically require the recipient of the letter or e-mail message to pay the advance fee (a fee/tax/bribe) to complete the deal. However, any fees paid will be lost.

Investment or share sale (boiler room) fraud

Boiler room fraud is the common name for mis-selling of worthless, bogus or vastly overpriced stocks and shares or those traded in very limited volumes/markets. The sole purpose of the exercise is to defraud unwitting investors. If the victim does decide to deal with a share sale fraudster, they will almost certainly lose any money invested and will not be entitled to compensation.

These scams can come in many forms however there are a number of common factors you should look out for. These include:

Unsolicited approaches
Unrealistically high returns offered for “low risk” investments
No independent evidence of the validity of the scheme
Pressure to make quick decisions
Instructions to keep the approach confidential
Telephone numbers quoted are often untraceable

Keystroke capturing/logging

Anything you type on a computer can be captured and stored. This can be done using a hardware device attached to your computer or by software running almost invisibly on the machine. Keystroke logging is often used by fraudsters to capture personal details, including passwords. Some recent viruses are even capable of installing such software without the user’s knowledge.

The risk of encountering keystroke logging is greater on computers shared by a number of users, such as those in internet cafes. An up-to-date anti-virus software program and firewall will help remove the harmful software before it can be used.

Lottery fraud

This involves letters or e-mail messages which advise the recipient that they have won a prize in a lottery. To claim the win, they are asked to respond to the letter or e-mail message and to provide bank account details to allow for funds to be transferred. The recipient may also be asked to pay a handling/processing fee. If paid, this fee will be lost. Also, any details given will probably be used to commit further fraud.

Pharming

Pharming is when a fraudster creates false websites in the hope that people will visit them by mistake. People can sometimes do this by mistyping a website address–or sometimes a fraudster can redirect traffic from a genuine website to their own. The “pharmer” will then try to obtain your personal details when you enter them into the false website.